


Slow Smile

by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for



Series: Little Moments [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Desire, John entices Sherlock back to bed, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Mind Palace, Sensuality, Sex, Sexual Tension, Sherlock's Smile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:58:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_careful_what_you_wish_for/pseuds/221b_careful_what_you_wish_for
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John watches Sherlock deep in thought, noticing the small details he loves about him and wondering which sensual memories he'd store away if he had a mind palace of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Smile

John glanced up from the newspaper to see if Sherlock had moved. He had not. He was still seated at his desk, the laptop open with the screen gone black, his hands steepled beneath his chin, lost in thought. John noticed how the light from the window washed out Sherlock’s eyes, casting them in a silvery blue that matched the hazy mid-morning sky outside.

The cup of tea had gone cold by Sherlock’s elbow, the biscuits untouched. John folded the paper as quietly as he could, tucked it between the cushion and arm of his chair. There was nothing he could do to help with the case at the moment. He leaned his head back, just watching Sherlock think, deep within some inner chamber of his mind palace sifting through whatever odd collection of data he had stored there.

John sometimes liked to steal these little moments to study Sherlock. The long fingers with the perfectly manicured nails, the curve of a cheekbone, an unruly curl twisting across his forehead. In this light, he could see the lines etched across Sherlock’s brow and at the corners of his eyes. John liked nothing better than to witness Sherlock’s face crinkle into a slow grin, the smile lines thrown into relief, that rare, exhilarating expression directed solely at him.

At night, in the shadows, John couldn’t see all the little details that daylight revealed. But his other senses more than made up for that. God, what he could feel and hear and taste in the dark…

If he could somehow build a proper mind palace of his own, those were the memories he’d store away: his thumbs digging into the hard muscle of Sherlock’s hips, soft grunts and sharp gasps and low rumbles of pleasure, the taste of salty skin, the faint toasty scent of tobacco…

John wanted to bottle those intimate, intense moments, guard them, burn them into his mind so they could never be taken away from him. But if he was allowed to choose only one memory, what would it be? Their first moments of meeting, their gazes locking across the lab, their fingers just barely grazing as he passed Sherlock his phone? Their first kiss, full of anger and relief and pent-up want in a dark side street, their bodies speaking a language of their own, heat burning through their heavy clothes? Which encounter of hands and tongues and twisted sheets or creaking leather would he preserve? Whose fingers, whose mouth on whose cock, taking in, sliding down, swallowing up? Whose chest shiny with sweat, hips thrusting, knuckles clenched tight, head thrown back, lips parted, torso slicked with hot pulses of come?

All of it. He’d claim all of it, and give nothing up.

Just then Sherlock sat up with a start, his eyes going wide. He pressed his palms flat against the desk, then his hands flew to the keyboard, one finger impatiently striking the space bar until the laptop glowed back to life. “Of course… nearly impossible to trace,” he muttered under his breath as he typed furiously.

John watched, his pulse elevated by vivid memories, his blood stirred at the sight of Sherlock connecting a web of clues. John admired Sherlock’s mind, but he loved the man beneath the brilliance and arrogance and frenzy. At this moment, everything coalesced into a physical aching for him.

John stood up, crossed over to Sherlock, dropped a hand on his shoulder, his thumb skimming the nape of his neck.

Sherlock typed two more lines, then slowed, stopped. He glanced up as if he’d just noticed John for the first time. John saw the series of expressions flit across his face -- the initial flash of _Oh, for God’s sake_ at being interrupted, the furrowed brow of a closer reading, the lifted eyebrow of comprehension.

John smiled. “Nearly finished?” he asked.

“Nearly.” Sherlock paused, reconsidering. “But it can wait.”

John’s fingers slid under Sherlock’s chin, tilting his head up as he leaned down to cover Sherlock’s mouth with his own. John took advantage of the odd angle and access to Sherlock’s top lip, found the deep dip of his cupid’s bow with his tongue.

Sherlock wound his fingers into John’s shirt, pulling him closer, the kiss starting out hard and demanding, fading into soft and sensual.

“Come to bed.” John’s voice was a gravelly whisper, full of need.

Sherlock looked directly into John’s eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this little piece to mark the one-year anniversary of my first posting on AO3. (Nearly 100,000 words later...) I might add to this collection of ficlets as inspiration strikes. Thanks for reading!


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